Tony Stark, The Snuggle Ninja
by becannibalized
Summary: Five times the Avengers were surprised that Tony is a total snuggle ninja. And one time it was a villain instead.


Just a bit of silliness to overcome the Infinity War feelings.

Ultron? Civil War? Infinity War?... Doesn't ring a bell. _La-la-la I can't hear you._

* * *

 **1\. Bruce**

The first time it happened the team was watching The Lord of the Rings in the common room.

While Thor could not relate to most of the moving pictures his shield brothers tried to show him, he really enjoyed this epic saga (he loudly marvelled how the sorcerers managed to capture all the events of this obviously important piece of Midgard history).

The Spy Kids were pleasantly relaxing as well. Natasha was in the armchair in the corner of the room watching tv while still being aware of everything around. Clint was munching popcorn on his special place situated under the ceiling vent ( _No Tony, it is not a perch! - Sure it's not, Birdbrain_ ). While listening to Thor's lively commentary ( _That's the spirit, mighty Aragorn!_ ) Natasha raised her brow at Clint and silently dared him to take a bet about how long is Thor going to believe the movies to be true. Clint throwed a popcorn at her. He was _not_ going to lose his money that easily.

Steve liked the movie as well. He had read The Hobbit before the war and after his seventy years nap he read the trilogy with pleasure. He was a little wary of the movies prepared to be disappointed by the adaptation but was very pleasantly surprised. While the movies did not follow the books hundred percent, they were obviously made but someone who treasured and admired Tolkien's work. The one thing that was breaking the supersoldier's focus was where Tony was - the inventor promised that he just needed to finish something and then he would join them. But the fellowship was just about to be deGandalfed and _Still. No. Tony._

Bruce was quite immersed in the movie and practically mouthed the lines alongside (who would guess that he was a nerd? Yeah, everybody). He was just about to reach for another bowl of popcorn, when he realized that he was not able to move his right hand. Started he realized that he was snuggled by his billionaire science bro.

"WHAT!" Bruce interrupted the mourning for Gandalf and tried his best not to hulk out. Tony sleepily murmured something and then proceeded to snuggle further into him.

Clint fell from his not-perch, Steve opened his mouth and then closed it again without saying anything, Natasha widened her eyes in surprise. None of them noticed their teammate to come in.

Thor remained oblivious to the whole scene in the living room. How could he not - he just witnessed the fall of a great warrior. The next week he spent telling his shield brothers that the mighty mage Gandalf surely must reside in Valhalla now.

 **2\. Steve**

The team was having breakfast.

"Seriously, are we not going to talk about it?" exclaimed Clint and proceeded to pile pancakes on his plate while there was an abundance of them (sharing meals with the supersoldier and the god of thunder was sometimes more hazardous than their missions, the fight about the leftovers could get quite nasty).

"We just obviously missed Tony coming." frowned Steve, the tone implying he did not actually believed it since he had been checking the door almost continuously. The soldier looked at the inventor who was cradling his cup with empty stare waiting for the coffee magic to start having effect. All of the Avengers knew that it may take a couple of minutes. Until then his brain operated on basic functions only. They named it Tony's Windows Vista phase.

Natasha frowned at the remainder of the recent mystery. She did not like it at all. Yesterday she missed Stark's arrival. Tomorrow she might missed a cobra hiding in her boot.

"Maybe he has secret paths in the Tower." said Bruce sipping his tea. After initial shock he had taken it quite well. Although Hulk stirred at first, he calmed down after a moment and obviously decided that he liked the tiny sleepy human snuggling to him. Tony was determined not to let go for hours, but since the length of the movies, it was not problem for Bruce.

Natasha threw him an unimpressed look. This was not an old Victorian mansion but an Avengers Tower (the blueprints of which SHIELD had studied extensively).

"If so, he's not using the vents." grinned Clint.

"Who is not using the vents for what." yawned Tony who started going into his Windows 7 phase (still a lot to go to reach the StarkOS phase though).

The rest of the team (sans Thor who was too busy with making the sandwich out of poptarts, waffles and pancakes) looked at each other.

Finally Bruce said: "You snuggled to me yesterday. We didn't see you come."

Tony did not look surprised. "Yeah, I do that after a long inventing binge with no sleep." He took a sip and grinned. "Rhodey has stories!" Then he frowned. "Which reminds me I have to call Rhodey bear and get his opinion on something that came to me yesterday!"

Tony then grabbed the closest piece of food (and ignored the glare Thor gave him who obviously hoped to seize the waffle first) and quickly left for the elevator while muttering something about the 'Mithril undersuit'.

Steve frowned. He had plans for that waffle.

It was about five weeks later it happened again. Nothing much interesting took place in the meantime - the Avengers defeated Doom and his army of Doombots, arrested some amateurish wizard who summoned a Cthulhu-like creature, and after watching the X-men trilogy suffered the grumbling of Thor who didn't like that Magneto looked so much like the noble Gandalf.

Steve was just returning from the gym when he realized something heavy was attached to his left side. He emitted a manly sound of surprise ( _No, it certainly was not a girlish screech, thank you very much Tony, Jarvis's sensors must be compromised_ ).

Clint and Natasha ran to him, weapons drawn ( _Where did Clint get the bow? He didn't have it during the training_ ).

"Did you see him coming?" Natasha asked sheathing her gun while Clint was trying not to collapse in the heaps of laughter at the image of Tony snuggling to Steve, legs wrapped around his waist.

"No." Steve sighed.

"You have a Tony koala on you, man!" wheezed Clint between his laughter.

Steve game his patented Captain-America-does-not-approve face and tried to disentangle the sleeping inventor. At first gently, but he quickly found out that Tony _Would. Not. Budge._ Which considering the supersoldier strength should definitely not be possible.

After telling this fact to the Spy Kids (who smirked, took photos for later blackmail material and then wandered off to tell the rest of the team) Steve asked Jarvis to call Colonel Rhodes and explained the problem.

"Yeah, Tony does that." was the answer he got.

"Ehm, sorry?" asked Steve.

Rhodey sighed. "When he has about three days long intensive science binge, he goes to his Snuggle Ninja mode and attaches himself to a person like a limpet. He is half asleep and half still developing in his head. Some of his most brilliant ideas come from this. Just a couple of weeks ago he showed me a prototype of a practically wearable body armor that came from this." Yes, Steve had a very good idea where how this came to be remembering the 'Mithril undersuit' remark Tony had made after snuggling Bruce during their Lord of the Rings marathon.

"He disentagles himself after a couple of hours. No worries." continued Rhodes as if such things were completely normal (well maybe compared to other Tony's shenanigans they were, who knew).

After that Steve went to find the rest of the team to relay Rhodes' words. He only hoped that there won't be an Avengers assemble situation in the next few hours. Fighting with a Tony koala on him would be quite problematic.

Freedom came 4 hours, 21 minutes and 26 blackmail photos made later. Tony just loosened his grip, dismounted Steve, threw his hands in the air, exclaimed: "Coffcakes!" and took off.

That night Tony came to the team smelling of coffee, chocolate, cinnamon and lemon zest, bringing along a plate full of small chocolate-looking cakes and presented them with words: "Come to the dark side, we have coffcakes."

The team was wary at first, but after Thor (who was not wary of any food presented to him, ever) tried one and emitted and orgasmic moan while sparkling with a little bolts all around his body they lost all restraints.

After the fights over the breadcrumbs subsided it was unanimously decided that whoever their snuggle ninja Tony claims, shall take one for the team and tries to get Tony the best snuggling possible.

 **3\. Thor**

Jane was looking forward to her romantic dinner with Thor. It was some time since they saw each other in person (though the Skype sessions were nice as well) and she was really looking forward to conversing with him in person - in her bedroom (she had a sex on the legs of a boyfriend and she enjoyed to reap the benefits, so sue her). Though it was not as if she wasn't looking to their conversation over food as well, she even made dinner. Well, ordered a dinner. Well, told Darcy to order a dinner. But it's the thought that counts, right?

Finally she heard Thor knock, and it was definitely Thor because no one else knocked like her boyfriend (and left small dents on the door in the process).

"Hello, Tho-" she opened the door but didn't manage to finish the sentence as it _was_ the god of thunder in front of her, but not _just_ him. At his side was he was snuggled by a man who looked like… Tony Stark?!

"Hello, my lovely Lady Jane." boomed Thor. When she didn't respond, he followed her eyes. "Yes, my shield brother choose me for the snuggle duty today. I was not expected him to, but I feel very honored." He looked with his carefree trademark smile at her. And Thor _really_ did not expected him to - the god of thunder was flying peacefully through air to the Jane's apartment when suddenly the familiar red and gold suit appeared, stuck on him, kind of spit Tony Stark who proceeded to hold on to him, disentangled and flew back by itself, leaving the inventor practicing his koala move on the flying Thor.

Dazed Jane let them in and tried not to look at the billionaire too much during their dinner (which was quite a feat). The young astrophysicist listened to her boyfriend about the snuggle ninja history with a look of of disbelief despite the evidence right before her eyes. As the evening progressed she accepted that it is not a prank but just an eccentricity on the inventor's part. She then proceeded to tell Thor about a problem with her research on the possible Einstein-Rosen bridge creation that troubled her for the past two months and almost forgot about the Tony koala.

Well forgot for some time, that ended when she realized that it was also a _cockblocking_ Tony koala. If he didn't looked so adorable snuggled to her boyfriend she might have been tempted to pry him off.

Thor realized the 'problem' as well but assured his Lady that Tony will certainly be gone in the morning (while the god hoped that his shield brother would leave another batch of the coffcake delicacies behind). Sighing she snuggled on the couch to the Thor from the other side than the inventor was and proceeded to further educate him in the Earth movie culture ( _Let It Go is the most splendid song, Jane! I must show it to my brother. This will surely help him find the right path again!_ )

When Thor woke up, he was not snuggled from either side. Smiling he started to looking for his Lady Jane since he was quite looking forward to their bedroom conversation as well.

His quick search around the flat revealed the following: Tony was gone, he left no coffcakes behind, he left several arches of paper on which were complicated mathematical equations solving Jane's problem, Jane was more interested in the equations than bedroom conversations and proceeded to mostly ignore Thor (though the god was not surprised, his adopted brother and his shield brother were doing the same while researching a problem).

He was really not sure what to think when later after getting back to the tower he got a message from Jane saying that it was a wonderful date and he can bring a Tony koala any time.

 **4\. Clint**

Clint was certainly not hiding. Okay, he may have been deeper in the vents than usually and checking his watch so as to estimate when Tony could start his snuggling session. But he was certainly not hiding.

He sighed. All right, so he _was_ hiding. Not that he did mind Tony's snugglings session per se, but he wasn't going volunteer for it, dammit! He was an assassin, a tough guy, not someone's snuggle bunny.

The Tony koala was hilarious when on Cap or Thor (Jane managed to take a photo as well) but he did not want to be the next cuddled specimen. Not mentioning that it might not have been any problem for _them_ to carry Tony around as if it was a small kitten, but Clint did not want to develop an early problems with his back, thank you very much. Better if they sacrifice themselves again, or if Tony somehow gets the drop on Natasha and someone brave and foolish enough (God rest their soul) would take a picture.

It wasn't even one hundred percent sure that there will be a snuggle session. Most of Tony's science marathons did not end up in them. But better safe than sorry, right?

Clint wondered what is the inventor going to develop now. They all had their 'Mithril' body armor, heard about Jane's research and sometimes got to eat the heavenly coffcakes. Yes, right, the inventor remembered the recipe, but would guard it as closely as the iron man blueprints are made the coffcakes veeeery sparingly.

The first batch was free, the second was traded for five future get-me-out-of-a-board-meeting cards (Steve was frowning having to realize that they are going to have stage some fake Avenger business, but agreed because coffcakes) and the third batch was made by Tony when Natasha was badly hurt by a Doombot and the team was feeling particularly down. The fourth was actually going to be a private batch for one avenger and was currently being auctioned.

Yeah, Clint thought, he was screwed regarding that one. What can you offer to a billionaire when your main skill is shooting arrows and you have to compete with a spy that can infiltrate anything or a foreign prince that can get you a lot of goodies from foreign realms. Yeah, Thor was probably going to win the fourth batch.

The archer yawned. He was just going to take a brief nap here and then head back. Maybe if there is going to be another movie marathon he can let Tony crash on him as Bruce did the first time team witnessed Tony's snuggle ninja move. Just… a… quick… nap...

Clint woke up.

Wait… what?! Why couldn't he move? Was he kidnapped and restrained again? And why is something… TONY?!

He stopped panicking and realized that a) he is still in the vent god knows where in the tower and b) Tony was snuggling him in the way that he was pinning Clint's arms to his body. Now the only type of movement the archer was capable of was a bad imitation of an earthworm. An earthworm with a heavy inventor as a load on him. How this become his life again?

Couple of hours later (during which managed Clint to move by two whole meters, yay) Tony woke up, sleepily shook his head, ignored his teammate completely and crawled away.

Clint then proceeded to stay in the vents for thirty more minutes sulking. But he did feel pretty good when a week later Stark Industries introduced an AI robot that managed to crawl through collapsed buildings, find the survivors and pull them carefully out.

 **5\. Natasha**

Natasha was waiting on Nick Fury in his office. They had been going some Avengers reports together because Stark didn't do reports, Thor was exempt because his way of doing it was write it like a bard would, and Bruce couldn't write them because he didn't remember most of the fight. That left her, an archer who's preferable way would be to write the report like a comic book (and only when his payback suffered too greatly he _sometimes_ would them normally), and man who refused to write the reports on computer and instead wrote them in hand.

So every now and then Fury, her and a bottle of Advil had a date over the reports.

After the first forty minutes today though Fury's cellphone ringed and the answering resulted in a curse of profanities that would make the most seasoned sailors blush. Fury quickly left to yell at someone and left her to preprocess the work. Say what you want about the Red Room, but they did not make her to do paperwork (their torture was of a different nature).

She sighed and stood to lean over the desk to read something at the Fury's side of the table when suddenly she was enveloped in an embrace and only the familiar scent of the inventor (coffee, Dolce and Gabbana for men, coffee, motor oil and coffee) stopped her from throwing him over the table.

Seriously how was this possible?! He was not in the room before and the door did not open! A little bit more of this and she could cross out the 'spy' from her résumé.

She sighed (again), it seemed that there was so much to her new teammates than it seemed. Captain America could be corrupted by pastry, Tony Stark was a secret snuggle ninja, Bruce was a lovable nerd but apparently his 'I'm always angry' remark held a much deeper meaning and sometimes she wondered if Thor was not trolling them all with his confused golden labrador ways.

Suddenly the door opened. "Motherfucker!"

Oh bugger. She hoped that another bottle of Advil is not too far away, it seemed this was going to be a long evening.

Half an hour later a vein next to Nick's good eye was pulsing with a mighty force as he was looking at his chief of security (one who determinedly ignored the chair where Iron man was snuggled to Black Widow, because if he acknowledged that in any way, his wife could become an _actual_ widow). "Do you mean to tell me," said Fury in clipped tones, "that a half asleep man hacked into our system, the one _you_ assured me is Stark-proof, landed on the helicarrier and proceeded his way into my office without anybody digitally _or_ personally noticing."

"Ehm, yes sir. But he was so nice to as mark several places in our security code which could be exploited. He also seemed to put some comments in our code and databases pointing out some anomalies." the man said nervously.

"Anomalies?" the SHIELD director gritted out.

"Yes, sir. We didn't have time to examine them closely yet, but Mr. Stark started each one of them with these words, do you know what he could mean?" He then show Fury the screen of his tablet: _? 88 back, too many heads ?_

Fury's eye widened recognizing the HYDRA reference. Motherfucker!

 **+1 Loki**

The Avengers were assembled to fight Loki. Again. Who was doing some mischief in the Central Park. Again.

It seemed that after escaping from the Asgard prison the God of Mischief left his world domination aspirations and was quite happy to just live up to his title. While being a big pain in Avengers' ass.

Tony wants to have a quiet dinner with Pepper? The mummies in the museum come back to live and go for a walk into the city (probably in a search of Imhotep or something). Bruce is presenting his latest paper at a conference? The gravity in New York stops working for half a day. Steve plans to spend his day with the vets? All traffic lights are turned into marshmallows (and quite gnawed at the end of the day). All this while Avengers were trying to incapacitate, shoot or smash Loki to stop him from performing the magic. Loki was meanwhile trading barbs with Stark, avoiding the Hulk and trying to stab Thor.

Before the fight could properly start today the Avengers heard Loki yelp and he appeared in the green mist with a Tony koala at his side.

"Fuck." said Clint, summarizing their thoughts.

"What is this, Thor." hissed Loki angrily. "Is Stark joining you on that miserable journey of yours to _save_ me through the power of love?" he spit and was obviously just a moments away of getting his dagger and show their favorite inventor his usual response when someone tried to hug him without permission (stabbing the said person).

"Loki wait!" said Steve quickly. "Tony does... this."

"Does what? Hug villains?" said Loki dangerously.

"The Man of Iron requires closed contact while working on his greatest creations." explained Thor solemnly and Loki looked around if it's true (while Natasha could not be easily read, it did not hold true for the rest of the team, especially Steve) and relaxed a little bit. Later Thor explained that because of his inventions Loki considers Tony Stark one of the greatest Midgard sorcerers (or the equivalent of them) and is generally quite rude to interrupt the fellow sorcerer while researching a difficult spell.

"So what do you propose?" purred Loki. "Perhaps I should just leave with Stark and make a minion of him after he wakes up."

"Don't even think about it, you piece of shit!" yelled Hawkeye.

"We could have a truce until Man of Iron finishes his science meditation, brother! You could come with us to the tower and feast with us while I would introduce you to one of Midgards greatest saga!"

"Thor-" said several voices simultaneously, including Loki's one.

"One of the main warriors is the great and noble mage Gandalf! He is my one of my favorites in these legends." said Thor earnestly.

"Hell, no! I am not watching Lord of the Rings with him!" said Hawkeye resolutely.

"My friend Barton looks up to the elf Legolas, a mighty archer." nodded Thor while ignoring the crux of Clint's words.

"Yea-, wait what? No, I am way cooler than Legolas!"

Natasha snorted. "In your dreams, Barton."

In the end Loki did went with them (he did it because he wanted to explore the tower defences and annoy the Hawkling, certainly not because he was interested about the saga and missed feasting with his brother).

Nobody commented that Loki's eyes were suspiciously shiny when Gandalf fell (while absentmindedly petting Tony's head). Well, nobody beside Thor who exclaimed: "Do not worry, brother, the noble Gandalf will come back even more mighty!"

"Dude, spoilers!" said Barton (he did not like Loki, but believed that everyone should properly mourn for Gandalf and then be rejoiced by his return).

"Oh, forgive me, brother! Wait, let me make it up to you!" Thor ran off and returned with the plate of… coffcakes?! The 'good guys' then just mournfully listened to Loki's orgasmic moans as he proceeded to dispose of the coffcakes.

Loki then sighed blissfully and sat back in the comfortable couch while still petting Tony. Maybe there were some benefits that heroes got and villains did not that he had not taken into consideration before.

Thor smiled. He might not be the sharpest dagger in the armory but he did learn a couple of tricks after growing up next to the God of Mischief. If everything would go smoothly, his brother would be an Avenger by the end of the week.

Nobody noticed that at one moment when Thor looked at Tony Stark, the snuggle ninja opened one of his eyes and winked.


End file.
